


The First Weyrlingmaster

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Series: Another Chance: Chronicles of DC/Pern [1]
Category: DCU (Comics), Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-28 04:25:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of how Paul Logorides and a teacher from Fort came to work together to train the weyrlings of the first clutches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Weyrlingmaster

_[8.19.4] late in the 11th year After Landing_

Paul wasn't certain he really wanted to wake up, not with the way he felt, but Kazeth was speaking in the back of his mind, and that tended to be a good reason to wake up. Kaz wasn't generally pushy. _Rider... wake... The queens worry._

 _Huh? W'y?_ Kazeth's pushing was clearing the fog from his mind, and he realized that it wasn't a quikal hangover's fault but the effect of a powerful anaesthetic. Why -- oh. Thread. He remembered the updraft off the volcano pushing them sideways, Kazeth's flame getting only half of a tangle, trying to get his arm up to protect his face, and the sudden screaming agony of Thread hitting them both. He glanced down at his left hand and arm, and he breathed out a long sigh of relief at seeing the tips of all four fingers and thumb outside of the wrap of bandages and sealant, then reached out for Kaz again, _Love?! Are you --_

 _It aches,_ Kazeth admitted, _the numbweed helps._ You _are all right? I was not fast enoug --_

 _Hey now, no! You got us_ between _without help from me, buddy. I don't remember a whole lot._ He wasn't going to have his brown doubting himself like that. 

_Tenneth caught us,_ Kazeth answered, _she brought us home._

 _I'm glad,_ Paul said, washing love down the bond to his dragon, and he finally decided to look around instead of just down at his arm. 

Ziv Marchane smiled at him from a bedside chair, his dark face relieved. "Good to see you awake, Paul."

"How lucky am I to _be_ awake?" he asked, feeling the distant ache not just in his arm, but in his ribs, down his sides. 

_This is better,_ Kazeth said, relieved. _You are awake. The queens worry less, now._

"Bless your dragons' _between_ trick," their surgeon -- he'd moved north, early on, but when his nineteen-year-old daughter Alysha had impressed green Zorth last month, he'd declared he was moving their family south again -- said, his voice relieved. "You're going to have some pretty incredible scars, but you're alive to have them."

"So, pretty lucky," Paul said, nodding -- wincing instantly at the pull on scored muscle and skin -- before he went still again. "Okay. Everybody else?" 

"All in one piece," Ziv said, smiling reassuringly, "though Peter took a couple of scores and everyone was complaining about the wind throwing char at them. Minor compared to you."

"How long are you gonna keep me out of the air?" 

"At least two months, Paul. You bounce in and out of that frozen void of y'all's and you're going to get wound-fever, or worse, your Kazeth will."

As reasons to be ground-bound went, that one wasn't, actually, awful. It just rankled. A lot. This was the first time in the last year-plus of flying Falls that he'd managed to get himself hit this badly. Otto had been down for three months, well before Faranth rose, when Shoth had taken a clump full across a hindquarter... but really, they'd mostly been lucky. "And stuck in bed?" 

"Eh," Ziv shrugged. "Three or four days. None of it got to bone, or destroyed any of the muscle insertions. That said, you're going to be on a lotta painkillers for a while, while everything knits itself back together and you regrow all of that skin."

Could still be worse, Paul decided. "And Kazeth?" 

"What do I look like, a vet?" Ziv asked, then snorted. "Krystel said he's in better shape than you. The tangle went across his low mainsail, but only a few strands."

Paul breathed out, relieved, and nodded. "Okay. Thanks, Ziv." 

"No thanks needed, Paul. Y'all put everything on the line for us, every couple of days. Least we can do is put you back together." 

Paul stretched out his good hand to squeeze Ziv's, not sure what to say to that, then settled back on the bed again, feeling like he just wanted to go to sleep again. 

"Go on, Paul. Get some more rest, now that you've come up out of it." 

That sounded like a good idea -- a really good idea, actually. 

****

The next day, he was feeling better -- and a good thing, as his Wingleader and Weyrleader was in his sickroom as soon as Ziv would let him in. "Hey, Sean," he said, lifting his good arm in a wave. 

Sean flicked his eyes from the top of Paul's head on down to the tip of that arm. "Good… color in the tips of your fingers," he said. "Medic says you'll heal, have full use in time," he added. 

Paul blinked at him for a second, then smiled. Trust Sean to find the most oblique way possible to admit he was worried. "Sorry we scared you, Sean. Kazeth doing okay out there?" 

_I am doing as well as can be expected,_ his brown protested the question. _I have had a sheep and there is more numbweed when I ache too much._

 _Doesn't keep me from worrying,_ Paul replied, keeping his eyes focused on Sean. 

"He's fine… good strong dragon, and it fell the better way it could have on his sail," Sean reassured. "Give him a week or two, and you both will be good for straight flight." It was hyperbole, and Sean wasn't given to that often, but he was concerned how to keep Paul and Kazeth from going… cabin crazy while they healed.

Paul snorted at him, knowing better than that, but -- from Sean, that was almost sweet. "Sure," he said, letting Sean have his own way. "Woke up for a while last night, so I spent it thinking. I know we're all getting driven half-spare by the weyrlings, especially when we have to leave them to fly Fall. What if -- once Ziv lets me back on my feet, anyway -- I take over being primary advice-giver and caretaker? Kaz's got a strong enough 'voice' that he can talk to them easy enough. I'll still need help getting food corralled for the lot of them, but our hunting and herding crews can throw in on that. Take some of the weight off of you that _can_ fly Fall right now."

Sean looked at him, then let the corner of his mouth turn up. "Reading my mind as much as the dragons, Paul? Trying to decide what's the best way to keep your hand in affairs, and you steal a march on me." Sean considered a long moment. "They'll drive you spare in a week," Sean warned. "But I'm not one to turn off a volunteer's choice of insanity." The young ones were… mostly precocious, because the dragons were drawn to that type. And quite the handful.

"I hate being idle almost as much as you do," Paul said, completely unsurprised at how close he and Sean's minds were running. "Pretty sure you're right about driving me spare, but... better that than just cooling my heels wishing I was up with you every time Fall's coming. Alright. Soon as Ziv lets me up, we'll figure this out."

"I'll appreciate it," Sean said. "I know everyone handled Fall differently, but some of these kids never … adjusted? The dragons help there, but there's a touch of wild in a lot of them."

"Yeah, I know," Paul said, stretching his good hand out for Sean's. "It'll be okay. They're getting a little better, and after the first month it gets some easier -- "

"Sure, but next we're going to have a whole new crop of new-hatched," Sean said, running his other hand back through his red hair with a sigh. 

"And the month-olds can just pitch in and help," Paul said, quick and crisp. 

Sean snorted. "You whip them into shape quick enough, maybe," he said. He then crossed and gripped Paul's uninjured shoulder. "Rest up; you'll need it."

"Aye," Paul agreed, and he watched Sean leave before he really settled back to rest.

****

A week later, with three-day-old dragons needing fed every time anyone turned around and month-old dragons needing oiled, bathed, and treated for injuries almost as often, Paul was so damned tempted to throw in the towel and admit to Sean that he'd bitten off more than he could chew -- but he couldn't make himself split the weyrlings back up among the healthy riders and burden them again. Not when he could see the way that not being on-call to the weyrlings was helping all of them recover from the stress of Fall faster. 

He'd already organized the month-olds by a combination of which senior had volunteered to take which of hatchling-pair on as individuals and luck of the draw, using each bronze of the clutch as the leader for a small group of the other colors. One bronze, one brown, one blue, and three greens to each group -- what would be the backbone, eventually, of new wings for the Weyr, not that Sean and David wouldn't be shaking these orders up to fill out their own wings first -- had worked out well so far. As long as he kept sharp eyes on the bronzes' human partners to be certain they were handling things decently. With their partners' ages ranging from seventeen to twenty-one, the little wings were competitive without being at all malicious about it. Remembering some of his own time in schools and on teams, Paul was surprised by that... until Kazeth pointed out that the dragons were all clutchmates, and loved each other too much to accept true fighting or rivalry.

He still needed better information about how to teach them what they needed to learn, everything he and the other riders had come up with on the fly and only barely remembered to write down scattered between all of their memories, which was how he wound up on the comms with Rudi Schwartz up in the Fort caverns. 

"What can I do for you, Paul?" Rudi answered him. "Hey you're looking pretty good for on the no-fly list!"

"I've got my good side turned to you, is all that is," Paul answered, grinning back at the irrepressible schoolmaster. At least Rudi hadn't changed much since their school days. "But I need your help, Rudi. I don't have the faintest clue how to _teach_ , not really, and there's so much to learn for our new-hatched dragons... well, their partners, anyway. Have you got a really good apprentice -- one that really gets _how_ you teach, not just what to teach -- that you can spare for us?" 

Rudi scratched his head as he thought on that. "I'm not sure… it would need to be someone rounded in their own education, because you can't teach without at least a passing familiarity with what you need to pass on." He shrugged. "You might be the first one to ask for someone like that, Paul. Everyone else just wants teachers, not people who can teach teaching." He considered. "Tell ya what, why don't I review my current crop, buzz a few ears, and see who I can send down?"

" _Thanks_ ," Paul breathed out, nodding as some of the weight dropped off his shoulders. He needed that backup, quick, with Chereth's eggs having just hit the sands a few days ago. "You've surely got somebody that'll enjoy the challenge of putting a curriculum together in your people. I won't be able to come pick whoever it is up, but one of us will." 

"Yeah, I'm sure I can get a ride for whomever it is," Rudi agreed. "By week's end, Paul, I promise, barring any more fun events our home throws at us."

"Hush that," Paul said, but he was smiling as he said it. "All right. Thanks again."

**** 

Helena wasn't certain what she had gotten herself into, but when Rudi asked for help with a special project, she had decided it was worth the effort. After all, the dragonriders were a vital part of their ability to survive on this world… and there really wasn't any place else to go. She'd signed on to the colony as an educator, with only a contractor's stakes, but that was plenty in her mind. She enjoyed teaching, and if the Weyr only wanted to contract her long enough to teach their own teachers, so be it. 

She hadn't expected to fall in love with flying, though. Just the brief ride from the Fort, going _between_ , and then dropping to the Catherine Caves had whetted her appetite for it. However, she was here as a professional, and the dragons had more important things to do. 

"Thank you," she told the brown, and his rider.

"No ma'am, thank _you_ ," the rider -- she thought his name was Mal -- said, flashing a bright smile at her as he helped her slide down to the ground. "We're all at about our wits' end, trying to teach the weyrlings what they need to know, when the Weyrleaders' clutch was making it up as they went, and we're only a few months behind them!"

His head turned and he glanced towards the main entrance to the Caves, "And there's Paul now," he said, something in his body-language telling her that was important. She followed his gaze -- and barely bit back her gasp. The heavy sealant and arm-cast mostly hid the wounds, but... those were Threadscores, deeper than she'd ever seen on someone who lived through it. She tried to wipe the reaction off her face, but he was smiling as he made his careful way to her.

"Good morning, Ms. Bertinelli," he said, "I'm Paul Logorides, and I'm glad to see you. Rimaneth, Mal, thank you both."

"Not a problem, Paul," Mal said, and the brown -- Rimaneth, that was his name -- flicked his wings in what looked incredibly like a human shrug.

"Rudi asked me to come down, look at your needs in the educational sense, and set up a methodology plan for you all," Helena said as she tried to lock away the reactions. Focusing on her work was the best way to do this. "Granted, I have only been aware of the dragon project from the very edge, but I am qualified to produce courses based on educational need."

Mal shook his head, still smiling. "You have fun learning all that; it was a crash course for everyone so far," he said before leading Rimaneth off to get to the rest of his day's duties.

"Hope you don't mind keeping to a fairly slow walk," Paul said, smiling -- wryly, she thought -- at her, "it's about all I'm cleared for, right now. We've got quarters set up for you in the part of the Caves that our non-rider population uses, if you'd like some time to get settled in?"

"I can do that later, Mr. Logorides." She smiled at him, unable to resist that charisma of a survivor mentality. She remembered that on her own homeworld, an 'illegal' planet hit by the Nathi and discarded. They'd paid dearly for their illegal status, even those born there with no choice in the matter, which was one reason Helena had taken everything she had access to to qualify for the Pern expedition. Here, she had freedom.

"Oh, make it Paul, the long version's a mouthful, and you're gonna get tired of hollerin' it," he said, smiling back at her. "And alright, then. Come on, I've put some office-space together for us. Well, okay. The weyrlings have done most of the hauling, I stood around and pointed. If it doesn't suit, or you need another desk or anything, we'll get one for you."

"I had the impression this wouldn't be much on the classroom setting," Helena admitted. "But… I suppose that depends on the courses I need to help you put together. Rudi mentioned the care and feeding of dragons, based on Veterinarian complaints?" she offered, walking slowly with him.

Paul nodded, agreeing with that. "A lot of it is going to be hands-on, but... There's so much we've learned about how they best process firestone, how air temp, wind speed, even humidity affects how Thread falls, how to make certain your dragon is flying as efficiently as possible... All the geographic and astronomical coordinate-images we use to go _between_ \-- sorry," he apologized, "it's been on my mind since I got benched."

They stepped inside the Cave entrance just as he finished, and once she stopped blinking against the sudden dimness, Helena realized that the light was strange, not electric at all, and she tried to find the source. Baskets, fairly loosely woven, with -- the glowing fungi? That was brilliant, and not something she'd seen at Fort.

"Even hands-on training needs structure," Helena said calmly. "You build from Item One to Item Two in a logical pattern to make the subsequent lessons reinforce the prior ones," she explained. "How many trainers will I be working with?" Her eyes flicked from basket to basket, finding their design ingenious and so logical.

"Right now, pretty much me and two others," Paul admitted, "though with Chereth on the sands, we've got Alianne for the next month and change. We might get one of the other queenriders before long, depending on how long it is before another of the queens rise, but that's up to them, not us." His mouth quirked on a smile at that, one that looked affectionate and amused both. "Ryuko and Isaiah have been my primary assistants, they're out at the moment but they'll be back before long."

Helena nodded, then pointed at a basket. "How did you come up with such an idea?" she asked, letting her curiosity bubble through.

Paul didn't seem to mind the question, at least not from the way he grinned at her. "We managed to punch holes through to run the power and data cables for Leonid's computers and some of the powered equipment, but lava rock is tough stuff. After about the sixth time we fouled a drill bit trying to mount even wall-brackets for other cables, we decided we _had_ to go low-tech. We went to clear some of the glows out of a chamber and it just... struck.

"Weaving the things is a _pain_ , and they die off in about a week if we don't change them out, but... it's a nice, clear light we can stick anywhere."

"They're lovely, and they work so well," Helena said, and then let herself check the assumptions she'd made as he spoke, too. "I'm sorry, but can we back up a moment? You said "With Chereth on the sands" we would have Alianne, but I'm afraid I don't quite know what you mean."

That gained her a blink, and then a wry smile. "Sorry about that. Chereth has risen to mate and now she's laid her eggs in our underground Hatching Cavern. The queens don't like leaving their eggs, at all -- we found that out with Faranth and Amalath -- so it pretty much grounds their riders to find other stuff to do."

"Oh. And your injuries? Is that why you are training?" Her mind worked over the ramifications. It would be… difficult if their teachers were always changing based on who was available as an injured or grounded rider.

"Pretty much, yeah," he agreed, nodding. "We didn't start out intending to have just a couple of teachers for the weyrlings -- when it was just Faranth's thirty, we were planning on each of us but Sean and David and Sorka and Nyassa taking one 'under-wing', so to speak," he grinned at her for the pun, "which sounded like it would work fine.... Right up until we had two more queens rise before Faranth even laid. Amalath didn't lay quite as many, twenty-three, but Chereth laid another twenty just a couple days ago. Hallath flew almost two months ago, she should lay sometime next month. And," he paused, and Helena saw the way his good arm wrapped down around his ribs, holding onto himself. 

Whatever had happened, it had been very, very bad. She couldn't remember hearing of any deaths among the dragons, what --

"Then two weeks ago happened. We're.... We didn't know the queens would ever fight -- but apparently if they want to mate, they won't share. It scared us all pretty badly. So we've got Chereth's twenty on the sands, Hallath next month, Tenneth, Porth, and Lutenth all likely to clutch at almost exactly the same time three months from now..." his voice trailed off for a long moment, and she nodded. She wasn't sure she fully understood, but that was a huge number of new trainees for _any_ field!

"One dragonet and newly-bonded, we could all handle, some of us were even managing to handle a couple... but there's no way we can handle two more, or three more, or _six_ more," he shoved his uninjured hand through his hair. "We weren't expecting this from the queens, and now we're trying to catch up. With three more queens that might decide to rise any day now," he shrugged one shoulder even as he finished his thought, "we've got to get organized about this, and fast." 

Helena paused, took all of that in, and then slowly said what she was thinking. "You will have to assign a dedicated teacher, Paul. Someone who keeps the training consistent, and it has to be a dragonrider, because a grounded person won't understand what it is like beyond theory," she told him. "Assistants can trade in and out, but… consistency requires one person be in charge." She shook her head. "I can make training plans for every subject you might want, by interviewing your riders and getting the facts. But every person will teach them differently, and that could cause strife as riders are paired with students of different teachers."

He looked at her, long and thoughtful, obviously judging her words, and then he nodded. "Sean's going to have to make that call, but -- for what it's worth, I think you're right, and I'm going to push him that way. ...And I'm also pretty sure I got myself elected to the job by volunteering after I got scored, too. So, let's run with that until we find out otherwise.

"Yeah, we're a pretty headstrong bunch, it wouldn't do _anybody_ any good to have the weyrlings learning several different ways, and maybe not the ones their Wingleader thinks are best," he added, as he obviously thought some more. "You've just saved us some pretty serious strife later on, and you haven't even really started yet. Nice work!" 

Helena smiled, shaking her head. "Comes from being a general educator, not a specialist. So, I'll tackle subject matter, get some training plans worked up, and let you look them over as we go, amending as needed, until you have a set methodology. From there, it's just a matter of determining your best teachers." She cocked her head to the side for a moment. "It won't happen overnight, Paul, but I will do what I can to ease the burden on your shoulders."

"Thank you, Helena," Paul said, blatantly earnest -- and daring her name, she noted; then he grinned a little wider as they reached a doorframe. "Here we are," he said, swinging the door open to reveal a decently-sized office, "our office."

She stepped in, looking around, and then headed for the more empty of the large desks, settling her shoulder-bag on it. "Then let's get started." She had a project, one that was all hers, and that would be more satisfying than anything else Rudi might have found for her. She liked being challenged, and if it meant helping their world survive, all the better for it.

****

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Another Chance: Extended Verse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/987616) by [ilyena_sylph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph), [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly)




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